EDITOR’S NOTE: Mongo’s Back In Town was on the CBS Late Movie on January 31 and October 10, 1973 and April 20, 1978.

Lieutenant Pete Tolstad, the character played by Telly Savalas in this made for TV movie, feels like the early version of Kojak before that show would air in 1973. Tolstad grew up in the same neighborhood that is now his beat. He’s never had a real Christmas. He just does his job.

Directed by Marvin J. Chomsky (Tank, Evel Knievel, Roots) and written by Herman Miller and based on the book by E. Richard Johnson. Johnson was a convicted armed robber and murderer who wrote all eleven of his books from his cell at Stillwater State Prison in Minnesota. He started writing to pass the time in prison and his novel Silver Street won the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Allan Poe Award for 1968 and the follow-up, which this movie is based on, was considered an even better book. Despite his success, he got into drugs while in prison. He escaped and went back into crime before being recaptured and stayed in jail until 1991.

Everyone is interested in the reasons why Mongo Nash (Joe Don Baker) is back in town and why he’s spending time with a young girl named Vikki (Sally Field) who has just come to town from West Virginia. Is he in town to do a hit for his brother Mike (Charles Cioffi)? Or does he just want left alone?

This has a great cast. Martin Sheen plays Tolstad’s partner Mike and Anne Francis is a gangster’s moll who Savalas has a flirty scene with. Baker is great and somehow makes a killer into someone that you feel some level of empathy for and the way he treats Vikki. Ah yes. He is a killer. On the way to the brutal ending, we have people get acid thrown in their faces and everyone is fair game for murder including kids.

Originally airing on CBS on December 10, 1971, this is also known as Steel Wreath, which is a strange title and probably one that makes more sense once Johnson and his books were forgotten. Perhaps they didn’t want people to think this was a Blazing Saddles sequel, which there was one that is forgotten and was a TV series.

You can watch this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Couple Takes a Wife was on the CBS Late Movie on September 16, 1974; May 5, 1975 and June 24, 1977.

Jeff and Barbara Hamilton (Bill Bixby and Paula Prentiss) lose their maid and decide that if they’re both so busy, they should just get another wife because it’s 1972. And yet in the midst of porno chic, their new wife Susan Silver (Valerie Perrine) is only shown to be fleetingly romantic with Jeff and not interested at all in the benefits of a true triad relationship. But hey — it was on TV in 1972, so why am I wondering these things? Too many Joe D’Amato movies, that’s why.

Throw in appearances by Myrna Loy, Robery Goulet, Nanette Fabray, Larry Storch and Penny Marshall and yes, you have a TV movie.

Seriously, why didn’t Barbara and Susan just run off and leave Jeff — who is a real cad for the entire movie — all on his own?

EDITOR’S NOTE: To All My Friends On Shore was on the CBS Late Movie on June 13, 1974.

Blue (Bill Cosby) works as a skycap for an airport and also scrounges for junk he can sell. His wife Serena (Gloria Foster) is a maid and going to school to be a nurse. They’re both working so they can leave the projects and have a better life for their son Vandy (Dennis Hines), who resents the fact that he can’t have fun like his other friends and spend money. Well, when he gets sickle cell anemia, everyone realizes that time may mean as much as dollars.

Directed by Gilbert Cates — the producer of the Academy Awards fourteen times between 1990 and 2008 and was credited with recruiting Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg, David Letterman, Steve Martin, Chris Rock and Jon Stewart to serve as hosts — this was written by Cosby and Allan Sloane.

Cosby and Foster would reunite years later for Leonard Part 6. But that’s another story.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Firehouse was on the CBS Late Movie on March 25 and August 20, 1975.

Richard Roundtree — a star from Shaft making a TV movie a year later, was that a step back? — is Shelly Forsythe, a black firefighter bringing racial tensions to a firehouse. This is even worse when Spike Ryerson (Vince Edwards), the oldest firefighter, claims that an arsonist has to be black. The men include Val Avery as cook Sonny Caputo, Richard Jaeckel as Hank Myers, Michael Lerner as Ernie Bush and Andrew Duggan as Captain Jim Barr.

This was based on Report From Engine Company 82 by retired FDNYC firefighter Dennis Smith. Another thing you may catch — the firehouse for this movie would one day be the Ghostbusters’ building.

What’s strange is that this became a TV series with Richard Jaeckel the only cast member to appear in both the TV movie and the series. They dropped the black firefighter angle for the show when that’s the main reason we’re watching this.

To save money, most of the firefighting is newsreel footage. That said, the idea that Shelly has to fit in with racist co-workers, have the black community not think he’s an Uncle Tom and still not die in a fire are all great plot elements.

Firehouse was directed by Alex March (Serpico, Shane and Paper Moon — the TV shows) and written by Frank Cucci (The Andros Targets).

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Intruder Within was on the CBS Late Movie on August 14, 1986 and May 28, 1987.

While Alien is by no means a wholly originally film — just watch Bava’s Planet of the Vampires — its success has begat a spawn (Deadly Spawn, too) of imitators. I’ve made it my insane mission to watch as many of them as possible — I can guarantee that at least one or two of them will be much better than the last outing — the space turd known as Prometheus.

One of the first rip-offs — I say it in a nice way — was 1981’s American TV movie, The Intruder Within.

Back in the day, Starlog was hyping this film as an almost sequel to Alien. With the popularity of the film, folks were ravenous to see more chest bursters in action. That said — this has nothing to do with the original other than stealing just about every single plot point.

Instead of space, this film goes to a more terrain — yet not less remote — location: an oil rig packed with folks like Chad Everett (TV’s Medical Center, Mulholland Drive, Airplane II) as our mustachioed hero, Jennifer Warren (Mutant, Slap Shot) as his love interest and fellow rig worker, Joseph Bottom (The Black Hole) as the villain, Rocke Tarkington (Ice Pirates) and Paul Larsson (The Blaster from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome!). It’s worth noting that every conversation the characters have — pre-alien — is about hooking up. They’re far from the mainland and feeling the urge to just get it on because all the drilling is getting them hot and bothered.

I hesitate to even write the plot to this, as I could just write the plot for Alien: crew finds eggs, someone goofs about and pays the price, the monster starts stalking the ship, hijinks ensue. Again — this film is hypersexualized, as one of the first monster attacks is more rape than attack. And there’s always a KY jelly like substance leaking out of everything. It’s also pretty bleak — the raped crew member dies after she gives birth to a full-sized alien and just about everyone dies pretty horribly — if off-camera, as this was still broadcast TV.

There’s also one well-done section of the film that explains that whatever the creature is, it predates the Biblical Flood and has lived beneath the ice for millions of years — very Lovecraftian themes that are never followed up on, sadly. Plus, being the ’80s, there’s a subplot about the oil company Zortron and how they may want the creature and eggs more than the oil (again, a plot point taken straight from Alien) and some character work about cheating spouses.

The actual creature suit is pretty nice and holds up well to being in the light. It was created by James Cummins, who also contributed to House, DeepStar Six (I’ll be getting to that one), Enemy Mine and The Beast Within. It’s very Giger-influenced to the point that many people incorrectly report that Giger worked on it. That said, it’s pretty strange to see an alien climb a ladder!

For all the exposition, set-up and character development, this movie ends just when it seems like it’s picking up steam. Who knew all it takes is a flare gun to defeat an alien? It certainly surprised me! The Intruder Within got to the party early, but it’s not the best of movies — filled with blocked off TV movie direction, too dark camerawork and a short running time. That said — it still has some charm and you can find worse ways to spend 100 minutes.

You can watch this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Henderson Monster was on the CBS Late Movie on April 18, 1982.

Dr. Tom Henderson (Jason Miller) is in the midst of genetic engineering experiments with his ex-girlfriend and current assistant Dr. Louise Casimir (Christine Lahti) when the town’s new mayor, Frank Bellona (David Spielberg), bans their work. The problem is that Henderson is so close to a major breakthrough and doesn’t really have any ethics. There’s also the issue between Louise and her husband Pete (Stephen Collins), a drunk reporter given to drama any time there’s a society party.

This brings in a former Manhattan Project scientist Professor Leo Tedeschi (Nehemiah Persoff) who tries to bring in some oversight to what was, in 1980, the Wild West of genetic science.

Waris Hussein directed plenty of TV movies, including Copacabana and The Possession of Joel Delaney. The script is by Ernest Kinoy, who worked on big moments in TV like The Defenders and Roots.

If you see the title, you may think you’re watching a horror movie. The truth is, you’re nearly watching a stage play, a talk-heavy one, but I found myself fascinated by it. The science that the doctor is working on is common today, but the idea that someone would just flush a sample into the water supply is still scary.

You can watch this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway was on the CBS Late Movie on September 11, 1979 and July 10, 1980.

Director Randal Kleiser went from TV movies like this, The Gathering and The Boy in the Plastic Bubble to Grease, The Blue Lagoon, Flight of the Navigator, Big Top Pee-wee and more. This was written by Darlene Young, who went on to write Panic In Echo Park, Can You Hear the Laughter? The Story of Freddie Prinze, The Plutonium Incident, Little Darlings, Marilyn: The Untold Story, The People Across the Lake and more, as well as acting in the TV series Grimm and the movie Pig.

Eve Plumb stars as Dawn, a role that ended up angering Brady Bunch fans when she took this instead of doing the Brady Bunch Variety Hour, which replaced her with Geri Reischl as Jan. Reischl was also in Brotherhood of Satan and I Dismember Mama. She was to play Blair Warner on The Facts of Life, but had a contract with General Mills playing Dorothy of The Wizard of Oz in commercials for Crispy Wheats-n-Raisins.

Plumb plays Dawn Wetherby, a runaway who has come to Hollywood and is instantly attacked and mugged. She soon meets sex worker Frankie Lee (Marguerite DeLain) and fellow runaway Alexander (Leigh McCloskey, Inferno) before working for a pimp named Swan (Bo Hopkins). TV watchers had to be shocked, as the first john she has — and loses her virginity to, saying  “I felt nothing—just stared at the ceiling and became a woman.” — is played by Patty Duke’s TV dad William Schallert.

You can blame her mother for not having a husband, I guess, or maybe not treating her well. It’s all very moralistic, as you would imagine — unlike a movie like Angel, in which yes, sex work is dangerous but you get to hang out with Rory Calhoun and Susan Tyrrell — but this was one of the first times that TV would tackle this hot topic. One imagines a young Bret Michaels was taking notes — “She stepped off the bus out into the city streets / Just a small town girl with her whole life / Packed in a suitcase by her feet” — in his Butler, PA living room.

This was so popular that a sequel — Alexander: the Other Side of Dawn — came out a few years later. I didn’t like Alexander too much in this, as he’s such a downer. Then again, Bo Hopkins is a lunatic and somehow he’s able to get his hooks into Dawn instead of this guy, but we learn in the sequel that Alexander has dealt with some issues, like a famous football star who pays him to pose.

You can watch this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Echoes was on the CBS Late Movie on April 5, 1984.

Michael Durant (Richard Alfieri) has always dreamed of a man who is trying to kill him. Spoiler: It’s his twin brother who died in the womb. Now, that man wants to possess him, which mostly means that he gets mean to his girlfriend Christine (Nathalie Nell).

That said, this movie is pretty interesting because it’s a supernatural idea but treated as if dream possession is a fact of life and everyone just moves on. It’s also the last movie for Gale Sondergaard, Mercedes McCambridge (Pazuzu!) and Ruth Roman, who plays Michael’s mom.

It’s nearly an Alfieri vanity project, as he co-wrote it with Richard J. Anthony and sings one of the songs on the soundtrack. It’s directed by Arthur Allan Seidelman, who also directed Alfieri’s script for Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks. I know him from the first movie he directed, Hercules In New York. He also directed I Think I’m Having a Baby, Strange Voices, the Cannon movie Rescue Me as well as several movies that Alfieri acting in, such as Macbeth, Children of Rage, an episode of Magnum P.I. by the title “I Never Wanted to Go to Paris, Anyway” and a Trapper John, M.D. episode titled “In the Eyes of the Beholder.” In fact, the only film Alfieri acted in that Seidelman didn’t direct was In Search of Historic Jesus.

You’ll probably hate the protagonist, as he’s a jerk to everyone even before he gets possessed. I wanted this to be better because it has the right idea. It just isn’t great.

You can watch this on YouTube.